Contact (5 page)

Guilty until proved innocent, my Lord. Yellow cards with
instructions

on when to o
pen fire. White cards on arrest
procedures. Another white card on the use of P.V.C. baton rounds, and yet another on how M.79 grenade launchers can be used.

Will you please stop the battle, I have to consult my yellow and white cards.

The O.C. has dropped off again at the table, going unnoticed amongst the small talk.

"Confidential reports due in at the end of the w
eek, young sirs. " Brian the C.
S.M. keeping the admin. ticking over.

"Don't ask the Officers, they haven't done the joined-up writing course, yet." The Colour Sergeant.

Meaningless mouthings. In-jokes. Leg-pulling. Cursing, swearing but with very little to say. Brian put the whole thing into perspective: "I don't want to know you, because to me you will be just another number when I shovel what's left into a body bag."

His way of saying "I don't want to get involved because I don't want to get hurt." He's tried to tell me to do the same, but when you work with men constantly, day in day out, the personal involvement is bound to be there, however much you disguise it.

My platoon's good because we are all involved. All this and chips too.

The court is a joke. The case a farce. We have to drop the serious charges or be faced with a long-drawn-out trial with assault and brutality running riot. The guy gets off and we're back to the streets.

A change this time though – a trip round the U.D.A. clubs to chat up the locals in their own environment. Forced conversation, with no point of contact. Shifty eyes, furtive looks, noses buried in mugs of beer.

"Hello Lieutenant, come in. Will you have a drink?" "Mr. McKracken. How are you? I see the bar's doing well, any problems during the week?"

"Oh Lieutenant, you know that there is
never any trouble in
the Shankill. Why, some of your lads come from round here. "

"That's true. " And I wouldn't trust any one of them either.

"Are you comfortable up at Leopold Street?" Knowing we are not.

"Oh yes, we have really got the place fantastic." Knowing he knows that is nonsense.

"You have got the bar done out nicely." Thinking that for a flea-pit it is not bad.

"We try, you know." He knows I'm taking the piss.

The verbal sparring continues. Outwardly a show of interest and friendliness. Inwardly knowing that given half a chance we would happily turn this place over. There's usually one spokesman in the group, answering questions for all the men, who are suddenly taking a very deep interest in the newspapers, or finding that the beer has reached their bladders far quicker than anticipated.

Our eyes are not on the man we are talking to, but roaming round the room. No need to try and be furtive about it any more. The illusions of co-operation vanished some months ago, now we try and gain as much information as possible. There is not much to be gained, of course, the interesting characters having been warned of an Army patrol in the neighbourhood and secreted themselves in some back room or moved out by car. We know this and it doesn't matter because there is always someone who wants to shop another, sometimes for reasons of personal gain, sometimes out of pure spite. We are the poor suckers on the ground who get the feeling that some of the nastier are kept in power by the authorities from expediency. Better the devil you know, etc. This makes life on the street all the more difficult.

Eventually you lose track of all the secret squirrels lurking around trying to pass themselves off as part of the community. Cowboys in civilian clothes, as if the local community don't know that someone has been inserted in their midst. They are purely diversionary, but I wonder if they know that? With the number of Irish in the Army who actually live in these areas, it is j
ust not possible to use regular
troops in infiltration roles without th
e locals knowing about it.
Christ, it's so easy to spot a squaddy even with long hair and dirty jeans.

It doesn't take long to tire of the banter and we come to the real reason for the visit to the club. Some of the local lads have recently taken it upon themselves to spark a few incidents of bottle-throwing, crashing
V.C.P.s
and other sundry silliness, so before it gets out of hand we try and enlist the aid of the U.D.A.

"Sammy, there have been a few nasties in this area over the past week or two. Do you know anything about it?"

"Really Lieutenant? Well, I didn't know that now. I'll just have to take your word for it."

"Well, perhaps the word might go out that we don't appreciate the invitation to have a free-for-all. You know what that leads to?"

"Well now Lieutenant, I really don't know what I can do about it. I'll see if I can talk to some of the parents."

"Thank you, Sammy, we appreciate it."

The word will go out swiftly, the offenders found and either the proverbial kneecap job or just a plain beating. The clubs don't particularly want to be raided at this moment as business is going well, especially on the supplies of stolen booze. Profits are high and the living for the local "godfathers" is good. Policing by proxy.

When it suits us we'll raid the clubs; they know this but the longer they can be kept open the better the nest-egg at the end of the day. The clubs. Some legal with licences to serve alcoholic drinks, a majority illegal. The illegal ones run by the U.V.F. and its fringe groups.

The clubs. Where plots are hatched to drive the Catholics out of Northern Ireland. In the Ardoyne they exist to bolster the cause of the I.R.A.

The clubs. Breeding ground for discontent, anarchy and bloodshed. The clubs, the clubs, always the clubs.

Private thoughts compartmentalised. Private emotions suppressed. Hearts and
minds. Don't forget what you're
doing.

"No really, it's
a six-foot white rabbit.
" Paul, straight-faced with a captive audience, who are now looking visibly scared. "What do you mean, you fuckin' can't see him?" At first they laugh.

"What the fuck are you laughing
at? I don't see anything funny.
"

The smiles die away and an unease spreads through the place. Well, would you laugh at a potential nut with a rifle? The lads are enjoying the joke hugely. Light relief in the interminable round of forced smiles and charm.

Charm! How do you charm a spitting cobra?

Back at Leopold Street, complaints are beginning to drift through about intimidation to women in the area.

"He swore at me and made fun of my Michael."

"They came into my house and tried to rape me."

What time, what day, what did he look like. Tense in case they can link in a time that my patrol was in the area. Most times they get it wrong, their sense of timing no good. The local priest is the one that usually comes with the tales. Show him a copy of the log and send him away satisfied.

Talking to the priest is the most disliked chore in the base. He's old, bigoted and rambles for hours about how good the people are.

"Wonderful people, the Irish. Warm, generous to a fault." Duck as another salvo of bricks, bottles and petrol bombs comes hurtling over the roof-tops.

"Kind, considerate, family-loving people."

Watch the middle-aged housewife impassively. "Youse fucking bastards. I hope your children all die. I hope some big nigger's fucking your wife, God rot your soul."

"Oh yes, Father, we know and have enjoyed the hospitality of the people. " Does he really believe this crap? He's still talking.

"I know some of the lads like to have a bit of fun every now and again, but that is understan
dable." I wonder if I'm hearing
right or that something has tripped my brain and jumbled all the words around.

"Now with the Catholics, it's different of course. They are born with a violent nature. They must be stopped and the only way is for you to go in and shoot the ringleaders. We know who they are and if you don't do it then there are people here who will. Never you fear." Wow, some man of God this.

"What we need are the B. Specials back again."

This really is beginning to get to me and if it wasn't for the fact that I had been ordered to talk to the guy and "be nice, Clarke
, be nice,
" then he would have been out on his ear a long time ago. That's Belfast. Everything arse about face. Nothing normal any more. Ignore it or go gently loopy.

An N.C.O. in Flax Street Mill went into the vehicle park and blew his brains out with a pistol. One of my soldiers was posted to a desk job when he was found to be talking to himself in an O.P. He had cocked his rifle and was waiting to shoot anyone that happened to be walking down the street. Eighteen and cracking. We have a catch phrase going round the Company: "You can't crack me, I'm a rubber duck." Everyone walking around quacking at each other.

Quack, quack. It's even found its way onto the Battalion radio net, to be accompanied by that famous character, the "phantom whistler"! The Battalion Ops officer is going spare. The ducks and the phantom whistler even answer routine radio checks. All measures to stamp out the breach in radio discipline fail. The ducks and phantom whistler live on to provide amusement to the lads and fuel the anger of the idiots on the Ops. Desk. Hearts and minds. Ours this time. Quack, quack.

Clive is selling me battleships at three in the morning. I'm deciding on the colour and optional extras. Both of us fantasising on an air strike straight down the Shankill Road, complete with mortars and a tank for good measure. After all, we don't want any survivors, do we.

As time drags on, the whole camp is praying for a contact. For an opportunity to shoot at anything on the street, pump lead into any living thing
and watch the blood flow. Toms
sitting in their overcrowded rooms putting more powder into baton rounds to give them more poke; some insert pins and broken razor blades into the rubber rounds. Buckshee rounds have had the heads filed down for a dum-dum effect, naughty, naughty, but who's to know when there are so many spare rounds of ammunition floating about. Lead-filled truncheons, magnum revolvers, one bloke has even got a
Bowie knife. Most of the N.C.O.
s and officers are aware that these things are around and if they aren't, then they shouldn't be doing the job. We have spent months and years training, learning from pamphlets called "Shoot to Kill", "Fighting in Built-up Areas" and others. So now, we're let loose on the streets trained to the eyeballs, waiting for a suitable opportunity to let everything rip.

A few kills would be nice at this stage, good for morale, good to inject some new life into the jaded senses of the Company. Listen to me, rambling on about how a few deaths will solve the man-management problems. I know I'm thinking these things but no longer seem to care. Let's do it. Let's stir it a bit.

Thinking back to the ten o'clock news and the piece of film about a car bomb in the city. One of the toms was on an S.P.G. patrol when the warning came through and was busy clearing the area when the thing went off. The film shows him walking casually down the street when it blows and he is engulfed by a cloud of smoke and dust, to emerge a few seconds later still walking casually along.

"Just look at that," he cries. "Holy fuck just look at that!" The rest of the toms are sitting around the box shaking their heads.

"Wow, oh wow, wow, wow."

"Shit. Crazy cunt." Wonder in their eyes. Wish I'd been there.

Strange city. Get into a gunfight, kill a few people, then relax and watch the replay on the box. At the moment, it's still the interminable census. Street-walking, door-knocking, brain-draining boredom.

Hearts and minds.

2200 hrs. July 1973.

Warm night,

Cool head,

sore feet.

The shot you don't hear Is meant for you.

SUPPORT COMPANY HAVE been enjoying themselves over the past few weeks with a couple of contacts and a good publicity-earning kill in the Old Ardoyne. A gunman complete with Armalite rifle just about to zap at a foot patrol. He never got the butt into the shoulder. There was also a contact that we came superficially into when a stolen car was chased down the Crumlin and into the Shankill. It was eventually stopped, the occupants were turned onto the street and a seriously wounded terrorist was found lying on the back seat. By the time the patrol commander had finished a lengthy P. Check, the guy on the back seat was going cold. What a pity. Never mind. We all cheered and laughed, of course. One more of the bastards down.

Apart from the odd low-velocity round and occasional scuffle, there has been little going on in our area. Although to date we have had the largest number of finds of arms and ammunition, it has caused little upset amongst the people. We've never been too friendly anyway, so any cooling off of attitude really doesn't bother us. In fact there are those among us who would dearly love to stir the pot a bit and crack the self-satisfied smugness of the
U.D.
A.

Hookey and I have decided upon a little plan of action.

"O.K., Hookey, on every late-night patrol, after midnight every swinging dick that moves in the area gets the complete treatment. Hands against the
wall, complete body search. The
lot. Any cunt that gets a bit mouthy, on the deck, spread-eagled. We don't particularly want to lift a whole pile because TAC. will only let them go."

"O.K., boss." Bright gleam in his eyes.

The choice of after midnight is logical, in that anyone moving around, that late at night in a hard area, was probably on the fringes of the outlawed organisations, otherwise they would not have the nerve to be out and about.

Funny things happen in the dead of night in the Shankill.

Standing around in the Ops. Room looking through the personalities file, when a call comes through on the radio. A panic voice, indistinct amid the crackle of static. Immediately the whole atmosphere changes. The stand-by section commander, half-asleep in his chair, suddenly wide awake and half-way out of the door to get the section ready and Saracen fired up. Within two minutes they are sitting in the Saracen and I've joined them with the information that a patrol has been ambushed in the Shankill Road. No other information bar the exact location.

"Straight down to the Shankill, turn left and up to the Agnes Street junction. Go like hell." I'm shouting into the driver's ear above the roar of the engine.

"When we get there, I'm dropping three of you off short of the turn and want you down in fire positions covering the rear. Jimmy, take the other three round the immediate area. There's a back-up on its way as soon as they get a Pig out to pick them up." Shouted orders. Thumping heart. Eyes wide in expectation. Cocked weapons. Holy fuck, this is it!

There's a grey Morris 1800 in the middle of the street. Confusion. A Military Policeman kneeling beside the front wing. Another appearing from a doorway.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"We were just doing a routine car patro
l, checking on stolen vehicles.
"

"You were what?" I'm incredulous.
I don't believe my ears. Two M.
P. s casually driving down the Shankill in the middle of the night in a civilian car in full uniform.

"Oh, forget it. What happened?"

"As we were driving along, we were fired at from down there." Pointing away to the south of the road. "We stopped and returned the fire."

"Did you hit anything?"

"No."

"How many rounds?"

"They fired about four or five, I think. My mate
loosed off his magazine.
"

"What, the whole lot?"

"Yes.
"

Thirty-odd rounds sprayed into the darkness. What would they have done if the gunmen had stayed around for a second go? Crap-hats.

Jimmy's returned from his snoop around and found nothing. Not even a sign of life in the vicinity. Anti-climax. Another fucking anti-climax. The tension screw winds a little tighter.

The lads are giving the monkeys hell. The back-up patrol has arrived along with the
O
.C., the C.
O
., the Battalion Ops officer and God knows what else. If only they would all stay out of the way and let us get on with it. The new C.O. in particular is being a pain in the arse. Career stamped all over himself like a cheap tattoo. A boring little man with a boring little mind.

How is it that we are controlled by a lot of fucking idiots? For some reason the best officers never get to the top positions. It certainly gets to the men, and the image of the chinless wonder drinking gin and tonic in the Mess is further enhanced by guys like this one. We've got a good Battalion with great soldiers and some really good officers, and then there is this clown.

I manage to get my guys back into the Saracen and we are meandering slowly back to Leopold Street via the back streets in low gear at high revs. The high-pitched whine of the Saracen in low gear is shattering, and guaranteed to wake even the heaviest of sleepers. Wa
ke up you bastards! If we don't
sleep you don't. A couple of guys walking down the street with a girl. Great!

Pile out of the Saracen, rifles levelled.

"Assume the position. Hands on the wall, fingers spread, now get those legs apart. Afraid you'll drop something?"

The girl is standing still, not saying a word. All our questions meeting no response. They're more afraid of what the "boys" will do to them than what we have to offer. Soon change that, sunbeam. The dull thud of an idly swung baton
t
ip between the legs. Gasp of pain.

"Who told you to move, cunt." Baton swings again, cracking hard onto a kneecap. Shrug from the tom in my direction. "Looked as if he was going to hit you, boss."

A body search with hands up hard between the legs. Squeezing testicles. Tears in the eyes. Fear in the eyes. Hopelessness in the face, turning slowly to anger and hard resolve. That's good mate, get angry, try something. Better still, go tell your mates.

"What are you doing with these two specimens, love? Why not come back with us? Bet they don't know what it's for. Nice girl like you."

Hungry-eyed toms, with open crudeness, visually undressing the girl.

"Is she a good fuck, mate? Do a good blow job, does she?" Chuckles and laughter.

"O. K. lads, you've had your fun, back in the vehicle. Let's go." Back to Leopold Street. Back to the cocoon. Back to the freaky non-talk of people grouped together for too long, to a private world behind a blanket stretched over the opening of a bunk, to the constant banter and false bravado.

The "street" is the reality and the unreality. The centre of the universe, the beginning and the end of time. The whole spectrum of all human existence in full living colour written on the walls, scored with the thump of explosive, photographed in the mind of a diseased body. Replayed every day, relived with boredom. We live in the commercial break of a battered building. Selling our morality
to ourselves over and
over again, with the help of war books, films, T. V. and sleep. Don't think of the rights and wrongs, just let the beast rise and enjoy the primeval passion.

An Army sniper who had just shot and killed a terrorist on the street was asked by a woman reporter what it was like to shoot someone.

"You just squeeze this little thing here," he said. She went away with the wrong impression, but no doubt just what she wanted to hear. The soldier sadly shaking his head. We are here to create the news for a hundred poised pens and ready cameras. To provide a nation with its quota of violence, to give people the chance to shake their heads, others to organise marches, pressure groups and all the other paraphernalia of a well-organised growing industry. Northern Ireland is an industry, providing reporters with the opportunities to further their already stagnant careers, for social workers to martyr themselves on the unsympathetic conscience of an unimaginative nation. An entertainment without interlude. To hell with the lot of you.

The
O.
C. has us into the briefing room again. A club raid is on tonight. Great, comes the cry.

"Tony, your plato
on with the Int. Section and C.
S.M. We
are not going to inform the R.U.
C. until you are on the way. By the time they inform the club, you will be in there."

Major, we love you!

It has been suspected that on a
number of occasions when the R.U.
C. have been informed prior to a raid, a tip-off has found its way to the target concerned. So now we have stopped letting them know until we are actually going through the front door. This method has led to the success of finding enormous amounts of arms and ammunition and other goodies. We don't trust any bugger, sometimes not even ourselves.

Club raid. Fantastic. Fantastic. This is going to be fun.

There is a woman living in a house just across the street from the location and it is obvious that as soon as a pile of Landrovers and Pigs and Sarace
ns move off into the night that
something is afoot and the word will spread like wildfire through the area. So we take it casually, and move out with two Landrovers as the main attack force first, the Pigs with the troops for the cordon to follow a little later. We are then going to join up and hit the club at the same time.

It's difficult to keep the excitement to a quiet level. All the toms wanting to be part of the action and in the raid group. No such luck lads, the first people through the door will be the
C.
S.M. and Hookey, being the biggest. Or at least that was the plan. Everything is going smoothly, gliding gently down the street to meet up with the Pigs. As soon as the vehicles enter the str
eet that the club is in, the U.V.
F. sentries will have warned the occupants of a patrol in the area. We've got to be real fast.

We turn into the street. Foot flat down on the accelerator and hurtle towards the club. Watch as the sentries dive into the door. All chaos and noise now. Pig slewing across the road disgorging soldiers who take up their positions, sealing off the junction and stopping all pedestrians.

Hookey and the C.
S.M. pile out of the front seat, me right behind thinking now that I would much rather be a spectator. Too late.

Hookey hits the door with
a flying kick and bounces back i
nto the street. Fury doubled, he and Brian attack it with crowbars and finally break in where the noise of screams from the women and yelling abuse from the men, mixed with flying bottles, glasses, chairlegs and whatever else is available, hits you like a wall. Some guy tries to crown me with a broken whisky bottle. I try to get my baton into a swinging position and eventually have to club him with my S.L.R.

Hookey's biting a bloke's nose virtually in half, and Brian's swinging lustily with his baton, yelling all the while. Two of my men manage to get to the rear of the club and the physical resistance begins to falter under the viciousness of the onslaught. More soldiers come in from the street, but there's still a little fighting going on. I cock my rifle and the place goes quiet.

"Right you bastards. Men on the floor, spread, women over on the right-hand side and for Christ's sake, shut up."

Some semblance of order now returning to the place. Bloody faces, spilled beer, broken bottles and glasses litter the floor. Sobbing women, shaking youths, cramped into this tiny den of hate and violence. The Pigs commandeered from other areas have arrived, and we start shuffling the human cargo up to Castlereagh for interrogation. Brian is standing over a guy seated in a chair in the middle of the room. He is very casually splashing whisky over a large split in the guy's skull, and then with great care and deliberation, starts to stitch him up.

"Where did you learn that, Brian?"

"On my D. Company medics. course. We spent a day on wounds and stitching. " Doctor for a day. Expert in an instant. That's Belfast.

The tension has lifted somewhat and eases a bit more when one of the drunks, hitherto unnoticed, struggles to his feet and starts singing, slurring all the words together. A couple of the toms pick it up and before long there is quite a little sing-song. A brief connection through the gulf. Pigs are trundling off down the road one after another with pasty, blurry faces staring unfocused out of the back doors. Some still giving vent to their discomfort, hands tied together with the plastic tourniquets with non-slip grips. Very efficient and easier to carry around than handcuffs.

Outside, the cordon is working well except for one bugger screaming about maltreatment, only to get another wallop over the head with a baton and collapse insensible on the pavement.

"What's going on out here, for fuck's sake?" I ask.

"Just some cunt trying to get through the cordon saying that he is the
local U.D.
A. man around here and that he wants to see someone in authority. I tell him he's going nowhere and he starts to get naughty. So I belted him."